


Alive

by InNeedOfInspiration



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Trailer, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-05 04:48:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18358931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InNeedOfInspiration/pseuds/InNeedOfInspiration
Summary: Based on the new trailer.





	Alive

Exhausted and afflicted. The last few drops of water falling from the faucet hit the bottom of the basin and, for a brief instant, disrupted the heavy silence in the room. Steve propped his hands on the marble surface to fix his hunched posture.

He looked at his reflection in the mirror again with an apathetic expression. It was more tolerable now, at least. After the Snap, after all those deaths, he felt crummy to the core, and thus, beyond his dishevelled appearance. His chest was heavy with the burden of all the loss and his skin covered with the dust of his companions. He spent hours in the shower, trying to scrub off his skin until it turned red and sore. But he still felt soiled coming out, and although he knew it was his heart and his conscience which truly were stained by the indelible memory of his falling friends, he couldn’t stop trying. And he stepped back into the shower.

Eventually, a few days later, as he took a long look in the mirror, and his eyes fell on his beard, the sight abhorred him. He dreaded to imagine how much dust all the hairs had gathered. So he shaved it off.

Yes, now that shell of a man staring back at him in the mirror was a more bearable vision. He almost felt clean inspecting his clear but slightly pale skin.

The haggard expression was still there, though. And it was probably here to stay, he reckoned. He had not found sleep in days; the ghosts of the fallen ones crawled across his bedroom ceiling every night.

He was exhausted and afflicted but he was fine. He was alive. He hadn’t turned into dust. Something that half of the universe could not boast of. He was one of the lucky ones but he found no fortune in this cruel mercy. He was now doomed to live with the guilt of his survival — the product of purely random chance — and grieve for those who did not win this atrocious lottery.

He leaned against the marble surface and let out a twitchy and doleful sigh.

“Hey,” he heard her familiar raucous voice murmur behind him.

He slowly raised his eyes and peered into the square mirror hanging above him. Natasha was standing by the door, her hair tied up which highlighted her green and sorrowful eyes. His pupils flickered down the curve of her bare neck and he noticed she was wearing an immaculate cotton bathrobe.

“Can’t sleep,” she admitted with a voice broken with exhaustion.

He knew. He had known she couldn’t for a few nights, now. It was when she would come for a _visit_.

Her fingers gently reached for the belt at her waist and began untying it.

“I thought neither of us would want to spend the night alone,” she murmured.

It was what she had said the first night after the Snap. And the night after.

She walked over to him and grabbed the side of her bathrobe to open it. He reached for her hand and stopped her. She plunged her hopeless eyes into his.

“We don’t have to keep doing this if you don’t want to,” he whispered as his thumb softly brushed over her knuckles. Those were the words he had meant to say nights ago but hadn’t as he found comfort and oblivion in their heated embrace.

“I want to,” she said. “You’re all I have left. _This_ is all we have left.”

She stood on her toes and stroked his smooth jaw with the back of her fingers. She then pressed her lips on and tenderly made her way along his jawline. His eyelids shut tight as he began to release a profound breath. He slipped his hands under her robe, round her small waist and lifted her up to sit on the surface. She parted her legs and wrapped them around him in a customary fashion.

He kissed her on the lips, her face then all over. These stolen, brazen moments of bliss was all he had left to shut the pain away.

Their embrace was a revival. And they could stop fearing they would be next to dust away. 

It was their evidence they were still alive.


End file.
